The Holland–Hungary connection

They came for the rooms that wanted a standing violinist: the Kurhaus, the Scheveningen pavilions, the hotel dining rooms. The Dutch asked for csárdás, hora, Russian standards — the Central European restaurant book, not the Hot Club book that was being invented in Paris in the same years.

This family is easy to confuse with Dutch Sinti gypsy jazz because both live in the Netherlands and both have been sold as “gypsy music.” They are neighbours. They are not the same right hand. Rosenberg and Schäfer play pompe. Veres, Mirando and Serban play the primás tradition that Budapest already knew. Mirando were Sinti playing that book. Veres were Hungarian Roma. Serban were Romanian Roma. Same menu. Three families. The difference is told in the Roma and Sinti chapter.

Lajos Veres was a stage name. He was born István Lajos Sárközi in 1912, Hungarian Roma, son of József Veres the violinist and Julianna the singer. At nineteen he led a café orchestra at the Ostende in Budapest. In 1935 he brought six men to Rotterdam. In 1939 he stayed. Fourteen albums. He married Maria Antonia Ender. Three daughters: one a Hague conservatory pianist, Ilonka who sang with him, and Mariska Veres (1947–2006), who left the restaurant for Shocking Blue. He died in The Hague in 1981. The birth name is Sárközi — the same working surname as the Budapest restaurant family.

Joseph Weiss (1895–1967), Sinti, born Opfikon in Switzerland, Sinti name Judo, married Balwina Georg the harpist. Tata means father. They fled Germany for the Netherlands in 1937. The public heard Hungarian csárdás; the kinship was Sinti. The sons on the stand: Meissel (Johann, 1920–1996, violin), Loeila, Morschy (1923–1992, violin), Roma Heina (d. 1962, violin), Nello (c. 1931–2008, guitar), Adolf Kokalo (1933–2025, piano, later Tata Mirando), Lupa (Hermann, 1935–2005), Moro (1938–2004, violin). Nephew Christian on guitar. After Joseph’s death in Dieren the name Tata Mirando passed from son to son. Royal Gypsy Orchestra Tata Mirando is this family — not Rosenberg pompe.

Andrei Serban, cimbalom, brought the family from Brăila. He died in 1935 on the stand at Hotel de l’Europe in Amsterdam. His son Gregor (1 August 1909, Brăila – 12 December 1997, Delft) was the Dutch Stehgeiger: Prinsessepaviljoen 1931, Kurhaus in summer, l’Europe in winter. Brother Colea (b. 1924), piano. Uncle Codolban taught Gregor in Paris. In the war the name became Şerbănescu. Gregor junior, piano, thirty-three years beside his father, put Serban back in 2002. The other son, Andrei Şerbănescu, violin, kept the wartime name.

Lakatos: János Bihari (1764–1827) as named ancestor; Sándor Lakatos the mid-century primás; Antal Lakatos, café bandleader, father of Roby; Roby Lakatos (b. 1965), seventh generation, years in Belgium; Sándor Déki Lakatos and his son, another recorded restaurant chair; Béla Szakcsi Lakatos (1943–2022), jazz piano.

Sárközi: Lajos Sárközi Sr. and Jr. (second and first violin), Rudolf Sárközi (bass), Gyula Bóni (viola), Gyula Csík (cimbalom). József Sárközi of the Rajkó, and József b. 1990. Lajos Jr. still plays the Százéves Étterem in Budapest. The Dutch Veres was born Sárközi. The names are in the register.